Tomato Stain
by MarcWinter
Summary: All because of my new white shirt. Modern Zelink
1. Chapter 1

**This is a modern fanfic.**

**I apologize for constantly writing this way, but quite frankly, it's the only way I know how to write. When I wrote "Why Link is Annoying" (wait, is this the kind of moment where I would underline the title? I dunno. I didn't pay much attention in 7****th**** grade English. I digress.) I felt as if I was trying too hard to be authentic with the time period. I didn't think it worked out well. So I'm going back to my initial methods. I hope this doesn't bother too many people.**

* * *

><p>Contrary to popular belief, that orange stain on my new white shirt isn't supposed to be there.<p>

It isn't my fault that it got there either. All the blame should be credited to the huge man-ape seated on the other side of the coffee shop. The guy who decided it was cool for him to wear a leather jacket, even though I'm pretty sure they went out of style a decade before he was even born. Naturally, he'd have to have a crew of followers so his ego could get complimented whenever need be. And on a side (but not unrelated) topic, that guy is also the reason I have a lack of tomato soup in the bowl in front of me.

Now, I admit it was my fault for ordering tomato soup while knowing full well that I had on a white shirt. But it sounded good and I hadn't brought a spare change of clothes with me to the wedding, so I made sure to be extra careful. Life, as it turns out, sometimes enjoys picking on you, so it only made sense for the biggest douche on campus to end up being in the location as me and my friends.

We had just come from the wedding of my friend Zelda's older sister. Zelda brought me and Sheik as her plus two because the three of us were best friends and went to the same high school. Sheik and I were best buds in high school and we weren't strangers to Zelda, but we weren't all that close to her either. We all ended up at the same college. We were all going for different majors, but it was one of the most prestigious colleges in the area, so it wasn't too shocking that anybody who got in would go. We ended up getting to know each other better freshman year. Now we were juniors and are still friends.

We were invited by Zelda a week ago, so we had to change around some of our plans, but were still happy to be going along with her. Her sister has been engaged for over a year, so when the wedding bells came rolling around, her family wanted it to be perfect for her, Zelda included. Which meant I had to get all fancied up and look my best. I don't mind having to wear a tie or even a stiff tuxedo, but man alive, do I hate tucking in my shirt. It isn't even something that I can explain, it just makes me feel totally uncomfortable. Of course, the part that got spilled on was the part that would have normally been tucked in if I had left it.

We stopped at a coffee shop nearby that university because we couldn't stay for the reception because Sheik and Zelda had to work on their papers that were due at the beginning of next week. I was starving, so I forced us to stop and get something to eat. Why that jerk chooses to hang out at a coffee shop at ten o' clock on a Friday night is beyond me.

Okay, now we're all caught up.

* * *

><p>Normally I would've gone over there to confront the sleaze bag, but I was too tired and hungry so I said, "Screw it. I'll eat at the apartment."<p>

So the three of us got in my car and started to head to the university to drop off Zelda. She dorms with her friend, while Sheik and I are rooming in an apartment on the other side of town.

"Oh, hey guys, Malon has a test tomorrow and is freak out studying, so is there any chance I could stay at your apartment for the night?" Zelda asked us.

I looked in back at Sheik, and he just shrugged, so I said, "Sure. Why not?"

When we got to the apartment, I immediately took off my shirt and went to throw it in the washing machine. "Hey," I called out to the other two who were in the living room. "Is there any special method to getting out a tomato stain?"

"Try having a skunk spray on it." Sheik called back.

I smiled. "I don't think it works that way." I just threw it in, too tired to care. I went back to the other two. Sheik had a blanket and a pillow set up on the couch. "Ok, you can sleep here tonight."

She nodded, but I spoke up. "Nah, she can sleep in my room tonight, I'll take the couch."

Sheik shrugged. "Do whatever you want to do, just don't wake me up." He said walking to his room.

"My room's over here." I said, motioning for her to follow. "Ok, since I assume you don't want to sleep in a dress, you can probably hang it on that," I said pointing to the wall hanger. "And you can just take some old clothes from the bottom drawer of my dresser."

"Thank you so much, Link." She said with a smile.

I grabbed some clothes to sleep in. "Hey, no problem." She came up to me and kissed me on the cheek.

* * *

><p>I awoke to the noise of ESPN on the TV and being told by Sheik to move my fat ass before he sat on me. After thanking him for the wakeup call, I went to go see what we had for breakfast. I heard a noise of somebody going through the laundry in the bathroom, and it took me a minute to remember that Zelda stayed that night and that was why I ended up sleeping on the couch. I saw the door was open, so I went to go see what she was doing.<p>

I walked in and saw her holding my shirt. The stain had faded, but was nowhere near completely gone.

"Link, didn't you use any bleach?" She asked me. I gave her a look that said, do I look coherent enough to even know how to work a toaster? She sighed. "Link, what would you do without me?"

I shook my head. "Have dirtier clothing?"

She laughed. "You are too cute." She threw that shirt back into the washer and left the bathroom.

Hm. This was odd. First a kiss on the cheek. then she helps clean my shirt, then she calls me cute. What's going on with this girl?


	2. Book Store

**I actually wasn't sure whether or not I would continue this, but hey, somebody wanted me to, so why not? One request is good enough for me.**

By noon I hadn't found anything to do. Zelda was still here after eating breakfast, and Sheik and I didn't have any plans. I figured I could go get a book, or at least use it as an excuse to get out of the apartment. As I began walking to my room to grab my shoes, I began thinking of where exactly I should go. The campus store hasn't got much of anything in it, Borders is an hour away, which leaves me with Barnes & Noble. Not a bad choice. Plus, I can grab a coffee while I'm there.

I put on my shoes and walked over to the door. "Hey Sheik, I'm driving over to Barnes & Noble."

Without taking his eyes off of the TV he said, "I'll pay you $5 if you can find somebody who cares less than me."

I smiled. "Don't miss me too much." I began closing the door, but he suddenly spoke up.

"Oh, hey, I think I left my wallet in the car. If you see it can you bring it up whenever you come back?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure no problem." I assured him.

"Thanks, man."

"You're going somewhere?"

I turned and saw Zelda coming out of the bathroom putting in an earring. She looked really nice today. "Yeah, I'm heading down to the bookstore. Do you want to tag along?" She looked behind her as if wondering if she forgot something. She turned to me and smiled.

"Sure! Afterwards, could you drop me off at my dorm, though? Please?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, of course. I mean, if you just want to go to your dorm, I can drop you off beforehand and…"

"No, no! I definitely want to go with you, Link." She said.

I smiled. "Great! Let's go."

* * *

><p>We were sitting in the car, just listening to the radio, when Zelda decided to reminisce about old times.<p>

"To a bookstore, Link?" She asked. "You haven't changed much since high school."

I smiled. "That was, like, three or four years ago! I haven't changed at all?"

Zelda shook her head. "Nope. I seem to recall that you spent a lot of the time in the library."

"Hey, come on now, that's not true. I spent a good amount of my time being forced against my will into lockers that were abnormally small for a high school."

She started laughing, but quickly covered her mouth and turned towards the window. "Sorry. That's not funny."

"Eh, don't worry about it. That was years ago." I told her.

She looked over at me with a smile. "Life sucked for you, didn't it?"

I smiled with her and turned into the Barnes and Noble parking lot. "Little bit."

* * *

><p>We had both gotten a book to buy and read when we got back. Before hitting the road, we got a coffee and were sitting at a table in the small area next to the store that was full of tables and chairs. I took a small break from my book to grab my coffee, and I noticed the book Zelda was reading.<p>

"Something Borrowed?" I asked her.

She looked up at me, then at her book cover. "Yeah, I was, um, just in the mood for a romance book."

I nodded. "Ah, I see."

She smiled at me. "What?"

"What?"

"You made a face."

"As I do quite often."

Zelda turned in her chair and held up her book, but never took her eyes off of me. I just looked at her, shrugged, and went back to my book. I saw her shake her head at me.

* * *

><p>I dropped off Zelda near her hall. Malon had already taken her make up test and was probably sane enough for Zelda to talk to. Her words not mine. I drove back to the apartment and saw a note from Sheik on the counter.<p>

_Left at 1 to go get some pizza._

Since it was already 3, I guessed he got a little side tracked. I started to go to my room, when I noticed water on the linoleum. It was starting to pool on the floor, while still moving. I headed towards where it was coming from and ended up in front of the bathroom. I opened the door and saw water absolutely **flowing** out from around the washing machine area.

Without even moving I pulled out my phone.

"Yeah, hey, Zel? I don't think my shirt's clean."


	3. Ruto

"How did this even happen?" Zelda asked me. I could only shrug. We checked around the machine and saw no irregularities. The washer hadn't been filled to the top with clothes, so it couldn't have backed up or anything, but all of the clothes that were inside had spilled out. Right after I called Zelda, I unplugged it to stop more water from pouring out, but the apartment still could have qualified for a city wading pool. Thankfully, no water got on the carpet.

"Did you call Sheik and tell him?" she asked me.

"Yeah, I called him right after you. He said he'd be on his way." Who knows how long that'll be though? I looked at the assortment of white clothes on the floor. I bent down and began looking for my white dress shirt. I don't know why I went for that in particular; I just wanted to see it. After about 5 minutes of searching, I finally found it. Of course, there was still a stain that was faint, but still visible from ten feet away. I wrung it out as best as I could and hung it on the door knob.

I walked over to Zelda, who was just staring at the water, and I'm guessing, lost in thought. "Hey Zel?" I asked to snap her out of it.

"Oh! Yeah? What's up?"

"Nothing, just wanted to make sure you were awake." I smiled at her, and began walking towards the door.

"Haha, where are you going?" She asked me.

I turned around to talk to her. "I'm going downstairs to talk to my neighbors. Just to make sure that the water isn't coming out of the ceiling or anything."

"How considerate of you."

"I try."

* * *

><p>The people downstairs hadn't had any water come down from the ceiling, but they did hear a lot of noise from above. They would have told somebody, but they thought we were home and were just being carelessly loud. I apologized for disturbing the peace and went back to see how things were holding up. Zelda had cleared the kitchen of sitting water, so now it just had to air dry. Sheik was standing in the bathroom door looking around the floor.<p>

I walked up beside him. "Any idea as to how this happened?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "Not a clue. It was running normally when I left." He was still looking for something on the floor.

"Speaking of which, why were you gone for two hours if you were just getting pizza?"

He stopped searching to answer me. "Well, the restaurant is a 15 minute walk from here, since you had the car to go on your date with Zelda, and while I was there I ran into Ruto, so I had to stand there and listen to her talk for an hour. No lie, I think I said 6 words total in the conversation." He explained.

Ruto was a girl who graduated high school a year behind us. She was incredibly friendly and could have a long conversation with anybody, even a complete stranger. I wondered how she got here, since she didn't really do to well in high school, and Sheik explained that her older sister, Lulu, was a senior at our college. I didn't know Lulu too well, but I had seen her around campus a few times. I knew that she was Ruto's sister but I didn't think I would ever have to see the chatter box again.

"How'd you finally get out of talking to her?" I asked him.

"Your call." He answered. "Thank you for that, by the way."

"No problem."

"But, you're also going to regret doing that."

"You've lost me." I said, puzzled.

"Well, I told her I had to go, because there was an emergency here at the apartment. She offered to drive me here, since I told her I walked to the restaurant. When I got out of the car, she told me that she would try to stop by as often as she could. It turns out the college is only a half hour from where her parents live, so anytime she goes home..." Sheik said.

"Sucks to be you guys."

We turned and saw Zelda smiling at us. She must have been listening in on our conversation.

I smiled back. "I'll try to invite her over when you're here, too. You know, to share the fun."

"Hey Ruto's a nice girl." She said.

Sheik intervened. "Yeah, she's incredibly nice, but she just can't stop talking! I bet she talks in her sleep, just to make sure she's warmed up for the next day."

Zelda gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Then Sheik turned to me. "Hey, didn't she have a crush on you in high school?"

Crap. That's right. She followed me around for most of junior and senior year. I was always nice to her, but I didn't lead her on or anything. I decided to change the subject. "Sheik, what were you looking for when I came in?"

He gave me a blank stare for a second then said, "Oh yeah, my favorite sweatshirt." He bent down and began moving through the clothes to find his missing sweatshirt. He found it quickly and pulled it out from under the pile. "Here we go!" He said, smiling.

Zelda walked up next to me, staring at the wet blob that was in Sheik's hand. "Hey, uh, Sheik I don't think that was in the load when I ran it earlier."

He shook his head. "No, I put it in later. I was actually wearing it after I showered, but spilled ketchup on it from eating a hotdog, so I figured since the whites were already going through, I could throw this in before I left."

Zelda groaned. "Sheik, no! You probably filled it too much! Do you know how thick and heavy sweatshirts are compared to just plain white t shirts and dress shirts?"

"What?"

I sighed. "Sheik, if you just threw it in when the cycle was going, the water level probably rose high enough to start loosening the top, so when the sweatshirt built up enough speed it burst through the top and water spilled everywhere."

"I thought machines shut off when the lid opened up!"

"Dude, these machines are ancient! They don't meet the same standards as washer these days!"

"Oh." He seemed to think over what he did.

"And why would you go get a pizza after eating a hotdog!"

* * *

><p>Zelda decided it was time for her to get back to her dorm, so I walked her down to her car. "Hey Zel, thanks for helping us out with everything. It's good to know we have somebody to be there if we need them."<p>

She turned to me with a smile. "I'm always there if you need me."

"I'm sure Sheik will appreciate that too." Just then, a car pulled up behind Zelda's on the road.

She bit her lip. "Actually I only meant y-"

A person got out of the car and yelled, "LIINNNKKK!" I looked over and saw Ruto running towards me.

**I'm gonna be totally honest. I don't have a clue how washing machines work, so I'm hoping my explanation for what happened makes sense.**


	4. Chatting

I turned and saw Ruto, but before I even had time to react, I had the force of 120 lbs. running into me at 10 mph. Her arms wrapped around me instantly and she began laughing. I could only imagine how embarrassing this would be for her if I was the wrong person. The thought made me smile. I glanced over at Zelda. For a split second I thought she was surprised to see me smiling, but quickly changed the look to a smile.

Ruto looked up and me from the hug. "Link! I haven't seen you in forEVER! Are you happy to see me? How have you been? You know, I dropped off Sheik here only a few minutes ago! I had to come back because I think my sunglasses fell out of my car. Aaaaand there they are!" She walked over to the other side of the lot to get them.

I turned to Zelda and said, "Yes I am happy to see you, I've been fine, and yes Sheik told me he met up with you." She smiled at me. I looked over at Ruto. She was right, it had been a long time since I had seen her last. She let her long dark brown hair grow out past her shoulders, but had it in a ponytail. She also was still wearing the sapphire earrings she wore every day in high school.

Ruto walked back over to us. "Zelda! Hi, it's nice to see you again!"

Zelda nodded. "It's nice to see you too."

I spoke up before Ruto could start talking again. "So, Ruto, are you here visiting your sister?" Crap. I shouldn't have asked a question, but I couldn't think of anything else.

Ruto put on her sunglasses. "Wellll, I'm not really visiting Lulu. I was just at my parents place and my sister wanted some stuff from their house. I decided I could bring it up for her as a chance to get out of the house. When I saw Sheik I got really excited because I remembered you guys are going to school together. I'm guessing you are going with them, Zelda?"

"That's right."

"Mm. Well, I'm sorry I wish I could stay and talk, but I still haven't actually given Lulu her things yet, so I have to run! I could stop by tomorrow or something." She offered.

"Sounds great." I said, mentally punching myself.

"'Kay, great! Bye!" She said running back to her car.

Zelda began laughing and I turned to her with a look of amusement and exhaustion. "Shut up."

She shook her head. "Link, you are too much of a nice guy. Wait until you tell Sheik."

"Come on, Sheik's an understanding guy." Zelda began laughing again. "You have to come over again tomorrow so she won't keep talking to me."

She looked up at me and smiled. She grabbed my chin and said, "Only for you." I pushed her hand away, but thanked her. She opened her door and got into her car. "You know, she still likes you." I sighed. I knew it to be true, but kind of thought that if it didn't come up, she would just change her mind. Still, I wanted to know why Zelda thought Ruto had a 5 year crush.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, bending over and resting on her open window.

"Think about what she said. When she saw Sheik she was happy because she remembered that you two went to the same college. Link, that was 3 years ago. I don't remember where most of the people in our class went to college, other than a few friends. Do you?"

"I think Darunia went to some college in Termina."

"That's a good start. I'm telling you, the first way to get someone to like you, is to remember as many things as you can about the person, even if they're just little things. It shows you care about them and their life. Now get off of my car; I'm turning on the air conditioner. It's hot for only being May."

I smiled at her. "Bye Zelda."

She smiled back. "See you tomorrow Link."

**I have a bad habit of thinking of characters as they are in-game. For example, I write Ruto as a human but I think of her as a fish. Hopefully that doesn't affect my writing. It's why I try to humanize.**


	5. Afternoon with Ruto

**I've gotten, like, 2 reviews on the subject, and it's not a big deal, but I'd just like to clarify that I know Sheik is a girl. There are just so few main guy characters so I, along with many other people, chose to go with an androgynous character.**

**But personally, I do believe that Sheik is a girl.**

I sat down on the recliner with my bowl of cereal. Sheik was on the couch eating buttered toast with his eyes closed, so I couldn't tell if he was trying to fall asleep or using the toast to try to wake up. I didn't even bother turning on the TV because I was waiting for him to miss his mouth, which to my amazement didn't happen. He's surprisingly accurate for being half asleep.

"Hey Sheik, Ruto's coming over today." I blurted out, causing him to smash toast on his forehead.

"What!" He said, eyes popping open.

"Yeah." I said eating another spoonful of cheerios. "I was going to wait for you to open the door and see her there, but when I thought I could make you mess up eating breakfast… well, it wasn't a hard choice. Oh wait. If I had waited until later to tell you, Zelda could've seen it."

"Oh come on! She's coming over too?" He said going to the kitchen to grab a napkin and clean his forehead. "Dude, she's been here for like, 40 of the past 48 hours! When will she finally have your shirt clean?"

"Oh right." I said putting down my cereal and heading to the bathroom. "When have you ever had a problem hanging out with Zelda anyways? We're with her at the university all of the time."

She picked up the phone and began dialing. "Yeah, but at school she's another person to talk to besides you during class."

"Yeah, we both appreciate that by the way."

"You're welcome. Hey Mido, my plans changed. Turns out, I **can** help you move into your apartment today. Ok great, see you at 1." He hung up the phone. "Hey, how long are you going to have Ruto here?"

I opened the washer. "I don't know. I forgot to see what time the next person signed out for her on the schedule." Damn. This stain just won't get out. Oh well, the only person who would care is Zelda, so I just have to keep them away from her. I walked into the kitchen and threw the shirt on the counter. "So, your plan to avoid Ruto is to help somebody move?"

"Yeah, he asked me last week but I told him I had a doctor's appointment to check up on my spontaneous nose bleeds." He said, smiling proudly for thinking of such a lie.

I went to the living room to get my cereal bowl. "Sheik, that is probably one of the stupidest things you've ever said or done. Aside from eating that two year old pizza. You know, in eighth grade when we went to the freezer in your garage and we found open pizza and you still ate it?"

"Tasted fine to me." He said simply.

"I just remembered why I don't let you out when we have company over."

* * *

><p>Zelda came over at noon. When I opened the door she had a bag in her hand. "Hey Zel. Come on in."<p>

She smiled at me as she stepped in. "Thanks. I was eating lunch at Dairy Queen and I figured I could pick up and ice cream cake because you told me they're your favorite."

"Hey great thanks!" I took it and put it in the freezer.

"Oh." I heard Zelda say from the living room. "I kind of thought you and I could have some of it before Ruto came over."

"Oh. Well, I kind of thought we could eat it while Ruto was here because, you know, if she's eating there's less time for her to talk."

She sighed and sat down on the end of the couch. "Yeah. I guess that makes sense. Hey where's Sheik?"

I sat down in my chair next to her. "Mido is moving out of the dorms and into an apartment today so Sheik and a few other guys are helping out. Mido is taking them out for pizza beforehand."

"Mm. What time is Ruto coming over?" She asked me.

I checked the clock. "Well she texted me saying she'd come over at noon, so I'd guess any minute now. I'm going to grab a soda, do you want something?" Zelda shook her head.

I got up to grab something from the fridge. "So how's Malon doing?"

She smiled. "Well ever since she took her make up test Malon's been fine. I'm grateful she **finally** took it! She was going insane worrying about failing the test."

I sat down. "Why? There's no way she could be getting a bad grade." Malon was an incredibly smart girl.

Zelda shook her head. "No, I don't think she is getting a bad grade in the class itself, but she got a D on the test because she had food poisoning the night before."

There was a knock on the door. I got up to answer it. "No time to study?"

"Not even a second."

I laughed and began opening the door. "It really sucks to be-" I was interrupted by being sucked into a hug.

"Link!"

"-me." I finished.

Ruto let go and walked inside. I walked into the kitchen to put off conversation. "Oh! Zelda! You're here again. How are you?"

Zelda smiled. "I'm fine. How are you, Ruto?"

"I'm great!" Ruto sat down in my chair so she could talk to Zelda. She dove right into what happened since they spoke last, which was less than 24 hours ago. "Ok, so, I went to the university to see my sister and drop off some things, right? Well, we were talking for about a half hour when this boy comes into her dorm, and while she's in mid-sentence, he just grabs her and kisses her! I was sooo surprised, cuz I didn't even know she had a boyfriend! It was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen, EVAR!"

Zelda laughed. "It sounds like it would be!"

"Yeah…" Ruto looked at her hands, then over at me. "Makes me wish I had a bo-"

"Who's thirsty? Boy, I'm parched." I said, subtly pouring my soda into the sink. Ruto didn't notice, but Zelda gave me a look. "Ruto? Do you want anything to drink?"

She tilted her head a bit. "What do you have?"

I motioned for her to come to the fridge. "Take a look." As she walked into the kitchen, Ruto look at the back counter. As it turns out, I forgot to put away my shirt.

"Link is that yours?" She said pointing to the counter.

"Oh, uh, yeah I just pulled it from the washer so it's kind of damp." I said, holding it up.

Zelda spoke up from the couch. "Hey, did the stain come out?"

Ruto laughed. "I don't think so!"

Zelda sighed, got up, and walked over to us. "Tell you what Link, I'll take this to a Laundromat and see if it fixes anything, OK?" She then grabbed the shirt from my hands.

I smiled at her. "Thanks, but it really isn't a big deal for me. If worse comes to worst, I buy a new shirt."

"Hey, hey, hey, no, I want to do this." She said adamantly.

Ruto grabbed a bottled water from the fridge. "Where'd that come from anyway?" She asked.

I looked at her and said, "Tomato Stain."

* * *

><p>Ruto went home at three after getting a call from her parents. Over half of the cake was still left, so Zelda and I each had one last piece. We had been eating in silence until I spoke up.<p>

"This is really good. Thanks for bringing it."

"I have no problem doing it if it's your favorite." She said.

"You know, I'm surprised you remembered. I told that to you, what, two years ago?"

She shrugged and continued eating. A few moments passed and then I got a text from Sheik that read: Is it saf for me to go threw the door?

I got up and opened the door, and sure enough Sheik was standing there. "Dude, your grasp of the Hylian language is appalling." I said, holding up my phone. He shrugged and walked passed me. "There's cake in the fridge."

"Awesome." He said going to the kitchen.

Zelda put down her plate and stood up. "I should probably head out."

"You don't want to finish your cake?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Nah, I'm kind of full." She grabbed my shirt and walked over to me. She smiled at me and said, "Thank you for an interesting afternoon. I'll do my best with your shirt."

"You're welcome and thank you." I said opening the door for her.


	6. Zelda and the Stain, Sheik and the Fight

**After a long internal debate with myself as to where I wanted the story to go, I got Josh Dragonheart to help me make up my mind. So if you like this chapter, thank him.**

The next day Sheik and I met up with Zelda in Anthropology class. The professor was late, but nobody really cared. Zelda sat between Sheik and me, so she and I were talking. Sheik was having an argument with somebody over what it is that hair is made of. Nobody could guess how such an argument came to a level of yelling at each other, or how it would begin in the first place, but everybody agreed that it was incredibly annoying for the two to be yelling from opposite sides of the room.

"Dude, hair is made of proteins!" Sheik yelled.

"Dumbass, they're made of enzymes!" his attacker yelled back.

"How STUPID are you?" Sheik shot back.

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!"

Everybody stopped talking to see where such a command could've come from. Surprisingly, it came from a small, mousy girl in the front row of the class named Saria. Saria was a hard studier, always wanting to make sure she could get as high a grade as possible. She always got her help after class, though, so if you wanted me to tell you what her voice was like, I wouldn't be able to help you. Still, I'm shocked that a voice like that came from her.

"Sheik is right." She said to end their dispute. She then slid down into her chair when she realized all eyes were on her.

"All right!" Sheik cheered throwing his arms in the air. Then he leaned over Zelda to whisper to me, "Would it be inappropriate to yell 'suck on that' right now?"

"A little bit."

"Damn." He said sitting back in his chair. He grinned to himself, feeling accomplished for actually knowing something he learned in class.

Zelda sighed at Sheik then turned to me and said, "If there was any confusion about why I talk to you more than him, I hope everything is straightened out now."

* * *

><p>All three of us were sitting on a bench outside of Zelda's dorm hall. Both Sheik and I had finished our classes for the day and were talking with Zelda before she had to head off to her final one of the day. We hadn't really said much. It was a beautiful day out and we were all enjoying the weather, as well as each other's company.<p>

"So, do you want to do something when your class ends?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, I'm determined to get the stupid stain out of your shirt."

I laughed. "I really don't see why you're so dedicated to getting rid of a little tomato soup."

She shrugged, but Sheik carried on. "Yeah, no kidding. Why do you really want to help him out by doing this? No lie, I'm actually considering pouring chocolate syrup on that shirt just to watch you freak out with an even harder stain. You know, if you manage to get it totally clean."

Zelda laughed. "Sheik if you did that…"

"How do you plan on getting it out?" I asked her.

"No special method. I would just try a real washing machine instead of an old one. Oh, I also bought some new bleach. I looked at your bottle and saw it was over a year old. How do you guys never use any bleach?" She explained.

I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't really think to use it."

"Really?" Zelda replied sarcastically.

"Well, I think we can all agree this is Link's fault and he can be punished for his wrong doings. But in the meantime, I'm starving over here. So Link, I'm cutting your play date short so we can go eat." Sheik said standing up and gesturing for me to follow suit.

"Bite me. Where do you want to go?" I asked him.

"I dunno. Stock Pot Diner?" he suggested. He began walking away, towards the parking lot.

"Sure, sounds good." I said standing up and following Sheik. "See you later, Zel." I said with a wave.

"Hey, Link!" She called to me. "I am going to get that thing clean regardless of what you or Sheik says!"

"Prove me wrong, please!" I called back.

* * *

><p>Sheik and I were sitting by ourselves at a table in the library. They were four person tables, but we sat on opposite sides of each other. He was typing a paper on his laptop while I was looking through my textbook. We were both pretty quiet. The only time we spoke was when Sheik asked me to spell a word so he could double check. After a while, the doors opened up and in came a swarm of laughter. It was Vaati and his gang of followers. They weren't exactly the kind to go looking for trouble, but if they were spoken to, they would be giant douches. As they walked in Sheik and I both knew they weren't going to be quiet.<p>

Following behind the group was Zelda. She looked around the library a bit before spotting us. She walked up and quietly said, "Hey guys. What are you doing?" She sat down on the chair next to me.

"Reading." I said.

"Typing." Sheik said.

She smiled. "Calm down party animals."

I chuckled. "Try and stop us. But you probably shouldn't be telling us to calm down." I gestured towards the table of Vaati's group. While they were only four person tables, they all had to be near each other, so they stole chairs from other tables. The tables weren't empty, the people who were there left to go grab books. In fact, their papers were still on the table. So one table had seven chairs while others had two or three. They weren't even bothering keeping their voices down either. I would actually guess that they were speaking louder so everybody could hear them.

Zelda sighed. "Tell me about it. In the hallway they were walking one step every minute. And their group is so big I couldn't walk around."

After a few seconds of trying to ignore them, Sheik stood up and said, "Hey Vaati? Yeah, hey, hi. Um, you're conversation isn't very interesting and your voice is loud and annoying. If you could shut up, or hey better yet, **LEAVE** the library that'd be great."

Vaati snorted. "Shut up Sheik, I could kick your ass."

While nobody in the library but Vaati and his gang actually believed he could, Sheik just replied by using both hands to point to his face and say, "You may notice a lack of caring."

I chuckled a bit and said, "Sheik you should probably tone it down a bit."

Vaati stood up a glared at him. "Sheik you'd better be careful."

"I've seen more threatening things in petting zoos." Sheik shot at him.

"Ok that's it!" Vaati started marching towards Sheik. One of his cronies held him back, though, saying, "Dude, you can't fight in a library!"

Vaati shook him and glared at Sheik. "Fine. Not now, but eventually we're going to pick this up. Got it?"

"Yeah I can spare two minutes to kick your ass." Sheik said, putting on a face to make it look like he was thinking of a schedule.

Vaati smashed his fist on his table and then left with his group.

Sheik sat down and went to his laptop. "Link, how do you spell aborigine?"

"Sheik!" Zelda blurted out. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

Sheik shushed her. "Zelda there are other people in here, too."

I looked around. There were only about five other people in here with us, but they were all looking in our direction, so I don't think it mattered how loud Zelda talked. "She's right though, Sheik." I told him.

"Nah, I could easily take out Vaati." He said.

I shook my head. "Do you really think it'll only be him? He's going to have is entire group there ready to fight you! Vaati won't be taking the fight lightly either." Zelda nodded, agreeing with me.

Sheik thought for a second. "Oh yeah. I guess you're right. Does it end –gine or –gene?"

"Of all the times to care about your academics…" I muttered.

"Sheik, seriously," Zelda told him. "You 're going to have to be careful. Link and I will be with you as often as we can to help you out if they start something."

Sheik raised an eyebrow. "You want to be in the fight?"

"I don't want to start a fight, but if one arises, yes, I want to help out." She stated.

"Alright!" He said. "Good spirit. Seriously though, I'm pretty sure this word is wrong on my spell checker."

"It's –gine, Shiek." I told him. I heard him mutter "no way" as he tapped on his keyboard.

"Oh hey on a lighter note, Link I almost forgot why I came in here!" Zelda faced me with a smile. "I got your shirt clean!"

I smiled with her. "No way! How on earth did you get that tomato out of there?"

"It helps when you're as amazing as me." She said winking.

"Very cute, Zelda." I said.

"Cute? More like flirty." Sheik said, not looking away from his paper.

Zelda looked away and said, "Hey, um, I have, uh, I have class in like, 5 minutes so I'll, um, I'll see you guys later, alright?" She started walking away.

"Yeah, ok sure." I said. "That was odd."

"Only to you it was." Sheik said, typing away.

**Ok, so this isn't exactly what Josh told me to use. The one I showed him didn't have the library scene, but trust me, if he hadn't told me to use this version, it would've been a totally different story. **

**So thank him.**


	7. Confession

"It's really coming down out there." I said, looking out the window above the sink. We came to the apartment after our classes instead of hanging around with Zelda, because we began feeling a few rain droplets. By the time we got out of the car and into the building, it had come to a steady pour. Two hours later, it was a torrential down pour.

Zelda and I were both really anxious over Sheik's fight, whereas Sheik was as lax as could be. He tried calming us down over the whole situation back at campus with less-than-stellar results.

"How many fights have you two been in?" Sheik asked us.

"None." Zelda answered.

"One." I answered.

"Daredevils. Link, what did you do in the one fight you were in?"

"I was watching from the sides while you fought the guy that stole your soda and shoved you down in the park. Half way through, you looked at me, said, 'Help me out here", grabbed my arm, and threw me in front of him. I got punched in the face and had a black eye for three weeks."

Zelda turned to me. "Is that where that came from? During senior year?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"I told everyone you got it from grabbing a dog out of the street when a car was coming!" Sheik said, attempting to justify.

"True, but you said I got it when I put the dog down, turned around, and walked into a street pole." I reminded him.

"Oh yeah." He said smiling, visibly proud of himself.

"Back to the fight, Sheik?" Zelda said.

"Right. All you have to do is go all out. Use all of your strength."

"I don't know…" I told him.

"What? Are you going to get yelled at for punching somebody in the face wrong? There are no rules!"

We still hadn't lost any of our nerves. We had no idea what to expect from Vaati. Plus, we'd easily be outnumbered. I had been thinking about it all day. Sheik had been letting his mind wander.

I sat down in my chair and he asked me, "Why do you suppose so many name calling insults involve the pelvis?"

"What are you talking about, Sheik?"

"Well, you can call anybody a dick, ass, douche, or whatever, and they get offended. Even 'butthead' involves the pelvic area. Why can't things like elbows or shins be offensive?" Sheik asked me.

"I don't know. Try starting it up. Next time you want to insult somebody, call them an elbow."

"Ok." He said.

A knock came at the door, so I got up to answer it. I knew it would be Zelda. She was the only one who came to our apartment at this hour. What I didn't expect were all of the tears to be falling down her face. She was soaked from head to toe, but I really don't think it bothered her. The source of her misery was a giant, wet wad she was hugging close to her chest. She was biting her bottom lip, as if she were afraid of me.

"Zelda, oh my god, what happened? What's wrong?" I asked, guiding her inside, towards the couch to let her sit down. Sheik and I stood right in front of her, which probably made her feel crowded, so Sheik went into the kitchen. She whispered an answer to me, but she said it into the blob, so I couldn't hear any of it.

"What?" I asked, bluntly.

"I'm sorry." She whispered again, but this time she moved her head out of the blob.

"What?" I repeated.

"For your shirt." She said, tears beginning to surface again.

"Zelda, what are you talking about?"

"I ruined your shirt." She sobbed holding out the blob. Upon close observation, I noticed the blob was in fact my shirt. I grabbed it from her and untangled it, water dripping from it. There was a huge rip going horizontally across the stomach area. "I'm so sorry!"

I threw the shirt to Sheik and sat down by Zelda, putting my arm around her. "Zelda, it's a shirt. A shirt. I can by a new one. I can fix this one. Hell, I could steal one of Sheik's! You don't have to cry. Not over this. This is nothing."

She began to calm down. "I just really wanted to do this for you."

I chuckled. "Well, that's very kind of you. But if it can't be done, oh well. You tried."

She stood up and turned to me. "I didn't try, I did it!" She said. "I managed to scrub out the stain and it looked great! But when I got here to give it to you, I didn't notice it got caught in my car door. As I walked, I felt a tug, and my reaction was to pull forward, I did it without thinking! When I realized what happened, I just stood in the rain, thinking about what to do." She sat down next to me.

I laughed a bit, but not enough to make Zelda think it was aimed at her. "Well, that sucks."

"But I couldn't fix it for you."

"Zelda, why are you getting so worked up over this? It just means a lot that you'd even try to do something like this for me!" I put my arm back around her.

"Really?" she asked.

"No, he's messing with you." Sheik said from the kitchen. Zelda sat up straight with a worried look.

"Attention Sheik, you're presence it requested in your own goddamn room." I yelled through cupped hands. He shrugged and left, leaving my shirt on the counter.

I got up and walked to my shirt. "But now this leaves one final question." Zelda turned to look at me, as I walked back into the living room. "Why did you try so hard to fix my shirt?"

She looked down at her hands. "You know… it was one of your only good shirts. You wore it to my sister's wedding so it has a story behind it…"

I smiled. "You cleaned my shirt so you could feel nostalgic later on?"

"For the love of the Goddesses Link, she did it for you!" I heard Sheik yell from the other side of the apartment.

I turned to Zelda. "What?"

Zelda stood up and yelled, "Sheik! You're not in this conversation!" Then we heard his door shut.

"What was he talking about?" I asked her.

"Nothing." She said turning away, almost as if she was trying to hide behind her hair.

"I'm having trouble believing that." I said.

Zelda looked me right in the eye. "Link, are you aware that you are probably the most naïve person I've met?"

I shrugged. "Well, I could've guessed, but…"

She began walking closer to me. "You only notice things when they're right in front of you. Scratch that, if somebody tells you that it's right in front of you. For example, your shoe's been untied for most of the day."

I looked down. Hey, sure enough, she was right. When I looked back up, Zelda was right in front of me.

"You have no idea how many times I've almost slipped up and told you." She said, looking me right in the eye.

I only stared back. "It may only enforce your point, but I'm still lost. What are you saying?"

Zelda put her arms around my neck and kissed me. We were there for about 10 seconds before she broke it off.

She stood there with a face that was nervous about hearing a response, while I had a face that said I was trying to look for one.

"Thanks for clarifying." Was my brilliant response.

**This isn't the end. I still have a few ideas.**

**To be honest, there's probably more mistakes in here than usual, but I'm too tired to take them out right now. Huzzah  
><strong>


	8. What happened last night?

**SO! I suppose it would be possible to say I'm a bit late with this chapter. But hey, an almost 8 month gap isn't all bad, right?**

**My deepest apologies for being so late with this.**

I didn't sleep much that night. There was a lot going in my head. One of my best friends is getting into a fight which will end up with somebody being hospitalized and my other best friend walked up to me, kissed me, and left. So here I am, 9:00 on a Saturday morning, hoping that I'll never get motivated enough to get out of bed. Unfortunately, my stomach had other plans. I had to eat, but I really didn't want to put effort into anything, including chewing.

I rolled out of bed regardless and walked out to the kitchen. Sheik was in the living room, eating his breakfast and watching TV. I looked in the fridge for something to eat. I must've been standing there for a while because Sheik yelled out, "Close the fridge before I start feeling the cold from all the way in here!"

I walked into the living room and sat in my chair. I stared at the TV screen, but I honestly had no idea what was on. My mind wasn't even bothering to decipher what my eyes were seeing. It was working on something else. Sheik was what brought me out of my trance. Kind of.

"So what happened last night?" he asked. I looked at him. "I mean, I went to bed, heard your mumbling voices for a few minutes, then silence. Eventually I heard the door close. What was going on?"

I stared at him for a few seconds. "I'll let you know when I find out." It clearly sparked an interest in him, but he kept quiet and turned back to the television. Zelda said she had almost slipped up and told me before. But she **still **hasn't told me exactly what's going on. I mean, clearly the two of us are past friendship, but now what are we? She left before elaborating and before I could get out a coherent word. And how long has this undefined feeling been building? We didn't start talking regularly until college. Was it before or after that? Was it a joke? Is Sheik in on it? Will she slap me in the face, laugh, and yell "Sucker!" soon?

Even I can see how paranoid I'm getting now.

"I know you guys are worried about Vaati, but I'm not." Sheik said, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"And it only took a day for that fact to hit you." I replied.

"That's why I really wouldn't mind if you guys didn't fight him. You can just stand on the sides and only do something if things get bad." He told me.

"This is odd. Usually you don't come to a thought like this after a fight."

Sheik shrugged and turned back to the TV. "Eh, I picked the fight. You guys shouldn't be punished for that."

I could only stare. "Wow. I'm sure Zelda would appreciate that."

He looked back at me. "Hey, where is Zelda? It's a weekend, usually the three of us are doing something by now."

I sighed and got up to go to the kitchen. "I don't think we'll see her for a while." I pulled out the bread and started making a sandwich.

Sheik got up and followed me into the kitchen, going to the opposite side of the counter. "I wasn't going to push this…. But then I decided, Screw that! So, what's up with you and Zelda? What happened last night?"

"Pass me the peanut butter." I told him. He slid it across the counter. "Well, first answer me this. What did you think the relationship was between Zelda and me?"

He made a small laugh and pulled out a barstool to sit down. "This is a good start. Well, I've always thought she's liked you. I don't mean recently she's developed feeling for you, no, I mean way back in HIGH SCHOOL she's liked you."

I couldn't help but scoff. "Come on, sure I knew Zelda throughout high school, but I didn't really start becoming friends with her until senior year."

"Well, you big doofus, do you remember exactly when she started talking to us?"

I stopped making my sandwich to think. "I don't know, I think sometime after winter break?"

He smiled. "Well, you're on the right track. No, it was at the end of January."

"How on Earth would you remember that?" I asked him.

Sheik just looked at me, amused. "Because the one thing she talked to us - scratch that - YOU about was Valentine's Day. Yeah, in fact, the Friday before Valentine weekend, she asked you what you were doing, and you said, "Probably nothing. Just going to watch TV." And because I know you're going to ask, I remember because I was standing right next to you and began laughing my ass off at your obliviousness."

I just glared at him. "Thanks for the help with my situation. Get this, last night Zelda and-"

Sheik spoke up again. "Whoa, I'm not done yet."

"Oh joy, I hope you can hear the excitement in my voice."

Sheik leaned forward on the counter. "Before I continue, has anyone ever told you you're oblivious or naïve?"

I pulled jelly out of the fridge. "Just last night I heard that."

Sheik laughed. "Zelda said that? HAH, this is even better! Anyway, when we first came to the university, we ran into Zelda, what, two or three times?"

I put together my pieces of bread and pulled out a knife. "Yeah, that sounds about right. She was always getting lost and we were some of the only people she knew. So?"

"Well, I doubt you'll remember this, but I do and I'm sure Zelda does. One day, back when we were in the dorms, she was waiting for us while we were getting ready, and you lost the map of the campus."

I cut my sandwich and handed one half to Sheik. "Ok…"

"Thanks." He said, taking the PB+J. "Well, then Zelda said, "Don't worry, I've still got my map from orientation." See?"

I took a bite. "You're saying Zelda always had a map and was pretending to get lost to spend time with us."

"No, I'm saying Zelda always had a map and was pretending to get lost to spend time with YOU." He said.

"Ok, I can see where you're coming from, but you're overlooking something. YOU were with me during all of this. How do you know it's not YOU Zelda's after?" I said, thinking I had gotten him.

Sheik just stared then got off of his stool. He walked over to the freezer and pulled out the ice cream caked and put it down in front of me. He walked into the bathroom and pulled out my shirt and put that next to the cake. Then walked back to his stool.

"That's how." He said, triumphantly. "And if I had to guess, I'd say whatever happened last night is also proof that it's you."

I just stared at the cake. That's when it hit me. Zelda had said that remembering the little things is a sign of affection.

"Sheik, do you remember when I said that ice cream cake is my favorite?" I asked him.

"Ice cream cake is your favorite?"

"Thanks man." Nobody would remember something that miniscule. It was just something I said to make small talk at a Dairy Queen. I meant it, but I didn't think anybody was listening. But Zelda took note of it. Then there was the whole shirt situation. I simple stain on a shirt would make most friends laugh at each other, not try their hardest to clean. Zelda really put everything she had into fixing this shirt. For me.

Sheik took the liberty of interrupting my thoughts again. "Ok, now I'm done. You can go." He said, putting the cake back in the freezer.

"She called me oblivious, I asked her what she was talking about and she kissed me." I told him. Sheik raised his eyebrows. "The only thing I could think of was, "Thanks for clarifying." Then she left when I didn't say anything else."

"Did your voice crack?" Sheik asked out of the blue.

"What? No!" I said waving it off. "Why would you think that?"

"I don't know. Seems like the kind of time when a voice cracks." He said, nonchalantly.

"Wow, we were almost having a regular conversation." I shook my head.

"So what are you going to do now?" He asked me.

I leaned on the counter, sighing. "I have got… no idea."

He smiled and stood up. "Cool! That means I get to step in."

I looked at him, confused. "What are you doing?" I began putting the sandwich stuff aside.

Sheik walked over to the front door and grabbed the car keys off the key rack. "Come on, let's go see Zelda!"

"You want to WHAT?" I asked, my voice cracking.

**Hopefully there won't be another big gap between chapters. Again, I'm sorry for that.**

****Since there was such a big break with writing this, it is possible the characters seem different, but I tried to stay as close to the previous chapters as i could.****

****I hope you guys are still enjoying the story!****


	9. Fight

**This chapter goes from bad to good to bad to violent, so… get ready I guess? Nah, it's not too bad but it's violent in comparison to the rest of my stories.**

"This is a terrible plan. You suck." I told Sheik as we entered Zelda's dorm hall.

"Yet you're walking ahead of me." Sheik pointed out. I turned and saw him smiling at me. I let him pass me and we kept walking. "Tell me, why are you so nervous about talking to Zelda?"

"I don't know. I guess because I know we have to talk, but I have no idea what to say. It's clear there is something between us, but I don't know what it is." I explained.

"That is so cheesy, I think you should write it down and sell it to Disney." He said. I pushed him forward, which made him laugh. "We're almost there, you should probably think about what you're going to say."

"Probably." I responded. We walked in silence as we turned down the various corridors that led to Zelda's room. They seem longer than usual right now.

When we got to her door I stopped Sheik. "Wait hold on a sec."

"No, I'm impatient." He said, and knocked on the door. I started glaring daggers, but his back was turned so he couldn't see me. The door opened and Malon was there with a smile. She came out into the hall, closing the door behind her.

"Hi Sheik! I see you got him out of the apartment." Malon said.

"Yeah, it was pretty easy." He told her.

I grabbed Sheik's arm and spun him around. "What are you two talking about?"

"Oh, yeah." Sheik got ready to explain. "When you were staring blankly at the TV this morning, I began texting Malon. She was having the same problem with Zelda, you know, Zel wasn't talking at all. Eventually, we decided to get you two together. As we were walking to the car, Malon said Zelda didn't want to leave the dorm."

"Thankfully, Sheik said he had it covered." Malon finished. "We had no idea what was going on between you two."

"So, you guys are so nosy you couldn't help but butt in?" I asked, glaring.

Malon looked like she was feeling guilty but Sheik shrugged and said, "Yeah, that about sums it up."

Just as he said that, the door behind them opened and Zelda came out. "Malon, who are you talking…" She stopped when she saw me. "Oh, hi." I gave a small wave.

Sheik spoke up before an uncomfortable silence broke in. "Yes, thanks, we'd love to come in!"

"Sheik, she didn't…" But it was too late. Malon, Sheik, and Zelda were in the room. I sighed and followed them in. Inside, we sat in our usual spots. Zelda and Malon at their little desks, Sheik sitting on Malon's bed, and myself sitting on Zelda's.

"Whoa, I just realized I'm _really_ thirsty." Sheik blurted out. "Malon are you thirsty, too?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I am. There's a vending machine near the entrance of the dorm hall."

"Great! Let's go!" Sheik stood up and followed Malon to the door.

"Oh, we have that mini-fridge right there. It has water in it." Zelda told them.

Sheik turned around. "Shut up. No it doesn't." And the two were gone.

Zelda and I sat there for about 5 minutes avoiding eye contact with each other. I decided I had to say something before my head explodes. "How did you sleep?"

She looked over at me, surprised one of us had said something. "Oh, um… not at all, really. How about you?"

"Same." At least now we were making eye contact. "Alright Zelda, what happened last night? What was that about?" Zelda turned and looked out her window. I kept talking. "Seriously? You work up the nerve to kiss me, but you can't even talk to me?" I think I was coming off angrier than I really was, because Zelda moved her eyes to the floor.

"I'm sorry…" She mumbled.

I sighed and shook my head. "No… No, don't apologize. There's no need to. Not from you, anyway. I'm the one who should be apologizing. For everything." I stood up, making Zelda look up at me. "For making you go through all of this. For not picking up the, apparently, obvious hints you gave. For leaving you to wonder what's going to happen next. For not being able to say anything when you kissed me. And for yelling, just now. I'm sorry for all of that."

Zelda stared at me for a couple of seconds, then stood up and faced me. She smiled. "Apology accepted." She walked over and hugged me. "So do we go back to being friends?"

As I was about to answer, Malon burst in. "Guys! Vaati attacked Sheik! What's going on here? Wait, not important! Come on!"

Zelda and I looked at each other and then ran after Malon. She began explaining everything on the way. "So, Sheik and I were going to get a soda, remember? Well, Sheik said he was hungry too, so he asked me if I thought he and I should go get pizzas for the four of us. On the way there, we crossed the street and took the shortcut through the Stock Pot Inn alley, but they were there! They saw him and grabbed him! Sheik started fighting them, but yelled that I should come get Link."

I started running faster, getting ahead of the other two. The Stock Pot Inn was less than a block down from the college. We had just gotten out of the hall, but it would still waste too much time if I got my car. "Ok! How many were there?" I called back to Malon.

"Vaati and two others! Maybe more, I don't know!" Malon was really freaking out.

"Was it this alley up ahead?"

"No, the next one!" Malon answered.

I sprinted down the sidewalk and got to the corner. Still, going full speed, I ran into the fight and body checked a guy who was punching Sheik in the gut.

Sheik started breathing heavily and looked up. He smiled and said through staggered breaths, "Hey, you made it…"

I glared, also breathing heavily. "You MORON! You weren't supposed to do this! Not right now!" Sheik looked pretty bad. He already had a black eye and multiple cuts scattered around his face.

"Sorry, I'll try scheduling these things better from now on…" He said, holding onto his gut, but still smiling.

I took the time to see what else was going on. Zelda and Malon were by the opening of square. The part of the alley we were in wasn't part of the path. It was an opening **in** the path to fit all of the dumpsters the Inn has. It was a square about the size of half of a soccer/football field. The guy I knocked down was getting up. He had a bloody lip, but I don't think I did that. I recognized him as the one who told Vaati not to fight in the library. Vaati was standing off near one of the walls, surprised to see me. He was on the opposite side of the square from Malon and Zelda. No visible mark could be seen on him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't hurt. I looked over to the opposite side and saw a third guy coming at the two of us.

He started turning more towards me, so I began getting ready to swiftly move out of the way. As I was about to jump, I saw Sheik run over from the side and punch the guy's cheek. I jumped back, because he was still moving forward, but the punch had made him stumble a bit. He chose to turn his attention to Sheik.

I got pulled back suddenly. The guy I had knocked down grabbed my shirt and was trying to throw me to the ground, but I managed to stay on my feet. I turned around and saw a fist coming right at me. I moved out the way, but right into the path of his other fist. It got me right in my side, causing a stabbing pain. Still, I only staggered a bit, and went in for my own punch. He ducked easily and came in from the same side to hit me again. Expecting it, I swiveled to dodge it. As I was turning, I threw in a punch. I got him right in his cheek, making him stumble backwards. I smiled, but realized I had a sharp pain in my knuckles.

"Catch!" Vaati yelled. All four of us looked over to him. He was throwing a metal rod to the goon I was fighting, possibly a pipe or something from the fire escape of the apartment neighboring the inn.

The guy caught it at the last minute and grinned at me. I began getting incredibly nervous. Now I could actually get hospitalized. He began swinging the rod wildly at me, assuming he would eventually get a hit in. I stayed back the whole time, far enough that the rod couldn't reach me. He realized this and began walking towards me. I quickly started to run out of space. Luckily, he was just swinging in a pattern, downward diagonal left followed downward diagonal right. I easily swept in and punched him again. This time as he was going back, I took the rod from him. I had intended to throw the rod away, but realized he could get it back, or the guy Sheik was fighting could get it. I held onto the rod but didn't really want to swing it. As soon as the goon saw my hesitation he came at me, reaching for the rod. I closed my eyes and swung as hard as I could to the side.

I heard a loud "Clang" but I wasn't sure what I'd hit. When I heard screaming I opened my eyes. The guy was on the floor, rolling around, clutching his left arm. I guess I had more strength than I knew because he got up and ran away, towards Vaati. He leaned his back on the wall and slid to the floor. Vaati rolled his eyes at his whimpering crony. I looked over to see how Sheik was doing and saw that he had taken a trash can lid during the fight and seemed to be using it to block some punches thrown by his attacker. He stepped on the guy's foot and bashed him over the side of the head with the lid. The guy fell down, making me guess he was knocked out. When he lied there for a few seconds I saw I was right.

Sheik walked over to me, blood dripping down his forehead. He smiled and said, "I'm totally exhausted."

I chuckled a bit and pointed behind us. "Go by the girls. It's the farthest point away from those guys." I said, changing my point to the still conscience thugs, Vaati and his crony, in front of us.

"Gotcha. Take this, though. It's pretty nifty." He said, handing me his trash can lid.

I started laughing, but stopped because of the pain in my side. "Nifty? Well, now I HAVE to take it." I took it from him and he walked towards the two girls. He had a slight limp in his walk, making me glad he decided to stay out.

Admittedly, I felt pretty cool having the rod in one hand and the lid in the other. However, instead of embracing the moment I walked closer to Vaati. I was a mere foot from being in his face.

"You picked the wrong people to mess with." I said.

He smirked. "You know what, tough guy?" He pulled a knife out of his pocket. "I'm not too worried about it." He kicked my right hand, which held the lid, and sent it flying from away from me. He then slashed the knife towards my stomach. I dodged it, but couldn't get an opportunity to swing, so I took a punch to the face by Vaati's free hand. I fell to the ground and rolled back a couple of feet. I heard Malon and Zelda yell my name. I tried getting up but had to do so slowly because of my side pain. Vaati ran right at me, but I side stepped him. He went past me, much to my relief. Now, I could see him and my friends, so I could know they were okay.

Vaati smiled and began swinging the knife again, but I easily backed up to avoid it. Suddenly, I saw Zelda running towards us. "Zelda, he has a knife, be careful!"

"I can see that!" She yelled back. To my surprise, she actually darted past us. I didn't want to take my eyes off Vaati, but when I heard a scream behind me, I had to turn around. I saw Zelda and the other guy I had fought. He was almost right behind me, on the ground, and had the trash can lid in the hand of his good arm. It seemed Zelda had run behind me and kicked the goon in his broken arm, before he hit me over the head with the lid.

"Hey, thanks!" I called to her.

Her eyes widened. "Watch out!"

Suddenly, the pain in my side grew exponentially. I screamed and fell straight to the ground, dropping the rod. Vaati had stuck his knife in me. I pulled it out and watched the blood pool. "Damn it!"

I saw Sheik come and charged Vaati, but he had gone a bit slowly, so Vaati had moved away. He went in to punch Sheik, who wouldn't be able to dodge due to the pain he already had, but stopped suddenly. Zelda had taken the rod I had and hit Vaati square in the back.

"Damn it!" Vaati yelled. He turned around and glared at Zelda. "You're going to regret that!"

"STOP IT!"

They stopped and looked at Malon. I didn't because I didn't want to try rolling over.

"I called the police! Get ready, Vaati!" She yelled at him, waving her cell phone in the air.

"Shit!" Vaati quickly turned around and ran to the alley path opposite of the one Malon was near. The goon with the broken arm managed to stand up and hobble after him. The third one was still on the ground.

Sheik, Zelda, and Malon all came running to me. The all crouched down to try and help me but realized they shouldn't touch me.

"Link…" Zelda whispered.

"I'll be fine as long…" I paused to let out a small yell of pain. "…as long as I get this bandaged up. Malon, did you really call the cops?"

She quickly shook her head. "No, I only said that so Vaati would leave! I didn't want you guys getting in trouble!"

"Good." I tried sitting up, but fell back down. "Sheik, take the keys out of my pocket. Malon, could you go grab our car and bring it as close to the alley's opening as you can? We should go to our apartment. We have gauze in our bathroom from when Sheik put a nail through his hand."

"Sure, no problem." She said, taking the keys from Sheik and running off.

Sheik laughed. "I remember that…" He said, drifting off. He managed to come back to reality quickly. "You know, I realized now why you guys don't fight." Zelda and I looked at him. "It's because you're really dorky when you do it! Link when you closed your eyes and swung that metal thing I almost stopped blocking to laugh at you!"

Zelda stared at him in disbelief, but when I started to laugh (or chuckle to the extent I could) she saw it was okay and laughed too.

"Sheik," I started. "You're a total elbow."

**Again, not done yet. Maybe a chapter or two more.**


	10. End

**It's probably not smart to write a romance story while listening to Dammit by Blink 182. For those of you that may not know and don't want to bother looking it up, it's kind of a suppressed-angry-break up song.**

**Ah well, win some, lose some.**

"You want to get me a new ice pack? This one is kind of soft now." Sheik asked me.

He was sitting on the couch with his head hanging over the back and an ice pack over his eye. I was in my chair trying my best not to move any muscle in my torso or abdomen. Two days passed since the fight and neither of us wanted to make any kind of movement. We were sore, in pain, and kind of miserable.

The knife hadn't really done that much to me, only gone in a couple of centimeters, but I still had to change the bandage of few times. Naturally, it still sucks when I move and I still can't stand up without help, but it's actually gotten better from what it was. Sheik is bruised up everywhere. We had Zelda and Malon take care of us yesterday, but they haven't come over yet today. That's unfortunate because Sheik got used to asking them for things very quickly. Now he expects me to obey him.

"No." I said, bluntly.

"Liiiink, come on! My eye hurts!" He complained.

"If you listen closely, you'll notice that there's nobody caring." I replied.

"I helped you in the fight!" He tried reasoning.

"It's because of you there was a fight!" I told him.

"You complain a lot." He said.

"YOU GOT ME STABBED!" I yelled.

"Oh yeah. Fine, I'll get it myself." He said, about to stand up.

Just then there was a knock at the door. "Hey guys, it's Zelda."

"Door's open." We said at the same time.

Zelda walked in with a sympathetic smile. "Hey guys, how are you doing?"

"Well, my ice pack is kind of melting." Sheik said, whining.

"Oh, I can get you a new one." She said, walking over to take the ice pack off of his eye. She walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer. I started glaring at Sheik. His head was still lying back, so I didn't know if he saw me until he started smiling. He put the smile away when Zelda walked back in.

"Here you go." Zelda said, switching the packs. She left to go put the warm one in the freezer.

"Zelda's not your slave!" I whispered to Sheik.

"I didn't say she was!" Sheik whispered back.

"So are you guys still biting each other's heads off?" Zelda said. She leaned over the counter facing us. "You guys were really going at it yesterday."

"No, we're better today." I told her.

"Shut up Link." Sheik said.

"If I could move…"

"I'm kidding, relax." He said, laughing.

I started laughing too, but soon came to regret it. The pain in my side hit me when I started to exhale.

"Damn it… Don't make me laugh." I told him.

He grinned. "Are you saying I shouldn't make you happy?"

"Yes, stop making me happy, you ass." I said, smiling with him.

"Don't you mean elbow?" He said.

We started laughing but I had to stop. "Stop it! That's never going to catch on!"

Zelda spoke up. "Do you guys need me for anything, or can I go back to my dorm?"

"Would you mind helping me up? I want to go to bed." I asked her.

Sheik laughed. "Nothing like going to bed at 10 A.M."

"Shut up. I couldn't move." I said

She started walking over to me. "You stayed here all night?" she asked me.

"Yeah. I can't really stand up on my own, you know." I told her.

"Why didn't you have Sheik help you?" she asked. The three of us started laughing until I yelled at the other two. "Anyway, that means you didn't see the surprise I put in your room!"

"What surprise?" I asked.

"I'll show you!" she said. She came over to my chair and looked down at me. "So, how should I help you up?"

"Here, just let me put my arm around you." I told her, holding up my right arm. Zelda bent over and I wrapped my arm around her neck. As she stood up and tried using my legs to push myself up, without using my abs. It didn't work perfectly, but it was better than trying it myself.

"Can you walk by yourself now?" She asked me.

"Yeah probably."

"Let's not risk it." She said, starting to guide me.

"Thanks."

"I've never seen 'the move' get pulled like that!" Sheik called to us. Zelda's face turned red, but I really didn't care at all about what Sheik was saying now. I'm too tired.

When we got to my room I saw what the surprise was. "Hey, my shirt! You got it fixed!"

Zelda started laughing. "You bet! I kind of got it mess up in the first place, so I felt like I had to." "She helped me sit down on my bed.

"You didn't have to, it's only a shirt. Thank you though. It means a lot." I said.

Zelda sat down next to me. "Hey, can we talk about something?"

"We can talk about anything."

"This whole injury situation has been a nice distraction, but what's the status between us right now?"

"I thought you said we were still friends."

"Actually I asked you if you were okay with that and you didn't have a chance to reply." She reminded me.

"Oh, that's right." I didn't know what to say, so there was a long, incredibly uncomfortable, silence.

…

"I've had a crush on you since high school." She said, looking at her hands. I turned my head. Zelda began recounting all of her attempts of getting my attention throughout high school and even now in college. It turns out Sheik was right about Valentine's day and the map thing. But he had missed a few moments.

"There was that one time you were walking down the hall and I didn't see you, so I hit you in the face when I opened my locker." She told me.

"Oh yeah! I had forgotten about that!" I said, kind of laughing.

"And at prom our senior year, we were dancing near each other for a couple of songs. You kept stepping on my foot and apologizing while we were on the dance floor, but you didn't know I was trying to put my foot where yours was so you would step on it and talk to me." She said, smiling, but still not looking at me.

"And during the first week you guys got your apartment last year, there was that time you and Sheik had a bunch of people over and we watched movies all night. Everyone just kind of fell asleep wherever they wanted. When we woke up, I was on your lap in your chair. That was my favorite way to wake up."

That story made me smile. Zelda kept going on with stories. We laughed, or I tried to at least, at all of the things that have happened since we've gotten to know each other. Eventually I had to interrupt her.

"Zelda, do want to see a movie with me?" I asked her.

"Do you remember when… I'm sorry, what did you say?" She said, looking at me.

"You've tried so hard to get me to notice your feelings. I want to go to a movie with you." I told her.

She looked at her hands again. "Because you feel bad?"

I shook my head. "No, because I want to spend time with you."

She looked at me with tears in her eyes and a slight smile. "I was a bit worried after telling you all of this you'd think I was some kind of stalker."

"Eh… that makes it sound bad. But when I can stand up again I want to take you to whatever movie you choose. I've already figured out Zelda, my best friend. Now I want to figure out Zelda, my girlfriend."

Zelda started laughing and hugged me, being careful of my side. I started laughing too. This time the pain didn't bother me.

"Guys I need a new ice pack for my other eye!"

"Shut up Sheik!" We said together.

* * *

><p>So, Zelda and I became inseparable after that night. We went and did everywhere together. Sometimes Sheik came along, but that was when he thought he could mooch stuff off of us. He was the third wheel from hell until we stopped paying for him whenever Zelda and I went out to do stuff.<p>

Zelda moved into our apartment. Sheik wasn't too thrilled at first, but then he found out Zelda liked cooking meals at any time of day with all of our rarely used utensils, so he grew accustomed.

We had graduated a year later. Zelda and I had both gotten jobs in our careers within 6 months after that. But we still managed to make some time to see each other. We moved to a different apartment in the city so we would be closer to our jobs. Sheik found a new roommate. I don't know how Malon handled living with Sheik at first (We didn't see either of them until months after it happened) but they seem to get along.

One day, Zelda and I went to dinner. She told me that she had just gotten promoted and that nothing could make her day any better than it was. Because I felt the need to prove her wrong, I proposed to her. No, I'm just kidding about the proving her wrong part, but she said yes and we started planning the wedding right away.

Zelda took care of most of it, but there was one thing I definitely had to have.

I needed to be wearing a certain white shirt.

We've been married for about 3 years now. We're enjoying every minute of it! We've had a son and we're expecting another one in the coming months. Sheik and Malon still come and visit a couple of times a month. I haven't seen Ruto since she came to our wedding, but according to Facebook she's got herself a new boyfriend.

* * *

><p>Zelda and I have moved up in our careers, made new friends, started a family, and have done it all with a smile.<p>

And if anybody asks how Zelda and I got together, I tell them it was all because of my new white shirt.

* * *

><p><strong>Ta-Da! Tomato Stain is done. <strong>

**I'm just going talk about the story for a little bit now, so if you don't want to bother with this, that's cool, just know that I am forever grateful for you reading and reviewing. A lot of people take the time to thank each individual reviewer. I feel like a jerk for not doing the same thing, but I wouldn't say anything different than what I am right now. So thank you, sincerely.**

**Moving on!**

**SO, I had actually written the first sentence of this before I had finished Hyrule High. And, in all actuality, I wrote it because I didn't feel like starting an English assignment. So I wrote that sentence, then realized it was 8:00 and the paper was due the next day. SO! I put this on the back burner.**

**I feel like this chapter was the worst in the whole story. The ending, you know, probably shouldn't be the worst but I kind of screwed myself over. People who bother looking up romance stuff enjoy reading things that are touching, mutual, romantic, etc. But never throughout the story did I ever hint that Link had feelings for Zelda.**

**Whoops! It's a Zelink fanfiction, that's, uh… that's kind of a staple for the genre.**

**I couldn't have Link say "Holy crap I feel the same way!" because you guys heard… saw…. Whatevered all of Link's thoughts. You know he wasn't head over heels. This wasn't particularly sappy/fluffy/romantic (pick your favorite) and for that I apologize. This is a story that could've gone on a totally different, probably better, path, and I got sloppy.**

**Now for a side note of my future on the site. If you don't really care for my writing and just happen to stick around for this story, no need to read on. **

**This may or may not matter to people, but I'm getting kind of bored with writing romance. I'm taking a break from that genre, and in all honesty, I don't really know what else to write about, so I'll probably take a break from writing.**

**You know, the 8 month break I had wasn't enough.**

**I'll probably put Connections on hold. Or just change the focus. I don't know.**

**BUT HEY! LET'S NOT LEAVE THESE ON A LOW NOTE!**

**What do you call the offspring of water and sand?**

**A SON OF A BEACH!**

**BA-DUM! CYMBAL!**

**Ok, bye for a while.**

**TTaranino**


End file.
